CVCC Words

We have moved on to learning harder word family chunks.  My class is now working on cvcc words.  We are learning the chunks ack, ick, ock, uck, all, ell, ill, ish, ash, ast, ust, est, unk, ump, and, ush, ook and a few others.  I have made a packet of the daily instruction I use to teach these chunks and a few games that they play each week to practice reading and writing the chunk.  I try to incorporate words that begin with blends so we can continue to review previous skills.  I have a few kids that are still having trouble with rhyming words so I also tie in that skill.  I teach the kids that we want our brains to know that when these letters get together they make a sound and the sooner we learn these tricks the better readers we will become.
                 The games and activities in this packet meetthe following common core standards

K.RFS.2.c. (blend and segment onsets and rimes)

K.RFS2.d (isolate and pronounce initial, medial, and final sound of cvc words)K.RFS.3.a. (produce primary sound for each consonant)
K.L.2.c (write a letter for most consonant and short vowel sounds)
K.L.1.a. (print many upper and lowercase letters)K.L.1.f. (produce complete sentences)K.L.4.a. (discuss multiple meanings of words)

These activities would also work well in a first grade classroomand meet common core standards 1.RFS2b, 1.RFS2c, 1.RFS2d, 1.L.1a, 1.L.2d

In the packet I have included posters that I hang up in the classroom.  I notice students looking up at the posters during reading and writing time quite often.  I believe the more they visually see it the faster they will retain it.  This is a picture of some of the posters included in the packet.

 This is one of the games included, there are three different ways to play.  Each way gives students practice reading and spelling words.

 This is my cvcc folder.  I use this format all throughout the school year and change out the phonics skill each time.  It is a quick easy way to practice skills and has been highly effective with my students.  I start with the alphabet folder and progress to cvc words, blends, cvcc words, and long vowel patterns.  This packet includes the directions and pages needed to create the cvcc folder.

                                                                                                               

Five Little Pumpkins

   

Our poem this week was The Five Little Pumpkins.  On Friday we made our own Five Little Pumpkins project to take home.  Students had to look at the first letters of each speech bubble and try to read the words to get the speech bubbles in the right order.  I precut brown strips and orange circles to save on time.  We glued the title and pumpkins on the front and the rest of the poem on the back.  Click here for a free copy :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4NZXEPqaqxkYVc1VDVaQnhHTms/edit?usp=sharing

  

                                                                                                                    

                                      

Sorting Mats

I have  my students use the words their way sorts to work on phonics skills in the classroom.  They are partnered up with a student on their phonics skill level to assist them with this work.  They do the same sort twice a week.  On Mondays they are expected to sort out all of the cards and put them in the right category.  If they finish early they can pick up a card and verbally ask their partner what letter the picture starts with or how to spell the word depending on what type of sort they are working on.  If you do not have the words their way program it is very easy to type up a list of words and have students work on categorizing them.  I like to take the sorts and laminate them ahead of time.  This cuts down on all the time it takes for students to cut them out.  Then I place them in a small envelope and rotate the sort through my groups based on their ability.  On Wednesday pairs re-sort their cards and put them under the correct category again, moving faster this time.  After their sort is complete they use a sorting sheet to record their answers.  Partners take turns quizzing each other over how to spell words and this time they write it on their recording sheet.  I like to put the sheets in a page protector and have students use a dry erase marker to play the game.  This allows students much need writing practice along with reading the words.  

CVC Phonics Activities

The majority of my class knows all of their letters and sounds now. We are moving on to CVC activities. This will allow students that need to still learn a few sounds that opportunity, but will teach students how to blend sounds together in order to read and write three letter words. We start each morning using our CVC folders. This 5-7 minute activity packs in a lot of great skill work. We work on reading words, blending sounds, learning onsets and rhymes, identifying nouns and verbs, and writing words. After we complete our "warm up" we move on to a 15-20 minute for each day of the week.



\You can purchase the cvc folder activity and cvc posters that make great references for students by                                                                clicking on the following links.                                   
                      folder                                                                                     posters




                                                                Monday Letter Swap
Each student has their whiteboard out and we start by writing a three letter word. Students write the word large enough to take up the entire whiteboard. Then I pick a new word that is very similar to the one we previously had the board. Only one letter needs to be changed out to make the new word. For example if the word was hot. I might say the new word is pot. Erase one letter on your board to change hot to pot. I call on one student to come up and point to the new letter on the classroom alphabet. The kids sing "letter swap, swap a letter to make a word" while the student finds and points to the new letter we need to make the word. Then I pick a new word changing only one letter again. Pot becomes pat, pat to pad, pad to sad and so on.






                                                                          Tuesday Basketball Plinko

We ordered this from oriental trading. We taped letters on the basketballs and chunks at the bottom. One student comes up and drops a basketball down the board. They read the onset and rhyme and we decide if it is a real word or a nonsense word. Students are given a recording sheet and write the word on the correct side. A new student is called on and the game is repeated. A different letter is written on the front and the back of the basketballs to give opportunities to create different words each Tuesday when this game is played.

Wednesday Slide Show
All of the chunks are put into a slide show and projected one slide at a time. Each week a new letter is picked to put in front of each chunk. I click through the slides having a student read the word. We decide if it is a real or nonsense word. If the word is real we write it on our recording sheet and draw a picture to represent it. If it is a nonsense word we go on to the next slide.  Click on the cvc words game picture to purchase this game for $1.00.

    



                                                Thursday Spin the Wheel

We ordered this prize wheel from oriental trading and tape word family chunks to it. One student comes up and spins the wheel. We write down the chunk that it lands on at the top of our whiteboard. Then we come up with a list of words that you can make from that word family. We erase our boards and have a new student spin and repeat with the new chunk it lands on.

                                                               Friday Letter Vests

Each student is given a vest to wear. To start the game three students are called to the front to make a word. I have each student wearing a letter say their sound loudly and then as a class we repeat the sounds and blend the word. Every child sits at their desk and has a whiteboard, they all write the word down. One child is asked to sit down and a new one comes up in their place. For example if 3 students are standing up front wearing b-u-g. To make the new word I would sing: (Tune: Alice the Camel)
Letter Uu can sit down, Letter Aa can come up, letter Aa can come up,
So we can make a word boom, boom, boom
Students erase the u and change it to an a on their whiteboards. Then the 3 students standing up front say their sound and the class blends the new word.

Dr. Seuss (K.RFS.2a)

In celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday we have been doing a special activity at the end of each day.  If students are good all day and keep their stamp they can participate in the 10-15 minute activity.  I read a Dr. Seuss book earlier in the day and then we do the related activity at the end of the day.  Here are a few activities.

I read  The Cat in the Hat and then we came up with a list of rhyming words and made our own hats.

                                          

We read One Fish, Two, Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and then graphed goldfish crackers.  Here is the worksheet we used to graph on.  It's a freebie on Teacher's Pay Teacher's, click on the link at the bottom of the picture.

                                         

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/One-Fish-Two-Fish-Graphing

We read Green Egg's and Ham and partnered up to play Tic-Tac-Toe.  One person was the green eggs and the other was the ham.  Click on the link for the printable.  This website has lots of cute Dr. Seuss games and activities.

http://www.seussville.com/activities/GREEN_TicTacToe_2.pdf

I would love to hear other ideas for Dr. Seuss activities!

                                   

Poems (K.RFS.3b, K.RFS.3c, K.RL.5)

Reading: Foundational Skills 3 b c

Each week my students get a new poem to add to their poetry notebook.  We sing the poem/song throughout the week as they are transitioning to the carpet.  We circle all the sight words in the poem and highlight any chunks or vowel patterns that we find.  They each have a folder with prongs in the middle, I put 5 page protector sleeves in each folder at the beginning of the year.  Every Friday the kids insert their poem into their sheet protector and it is stored in their book box.  They love reading/singing old poems during partner reading and even during read to self time.  After the kids get ten poems in their folder I have them take them out and I make them into a book by stapling them inside a large piece of construction paper folded in half.  Then they have some poems they can take home and continue to practice reading and some at school to enjoy.  Here is an example of one of our poems.  I try to pick songs or poems that go with topics/things we are celebrating in class or songs they sing in Music class.

                                                   

                                     

                                         

Winter Bulletin Board Ideas

I wanted to do a winter bulletin board to hang out in the hall for a while.  I used a circle punch to cut out lots of white circles.  Then I assigned each student three sight words to write out on the snowmen.  We are going to go out in the hall and count how many sight words we can read/write.

For math we are working on addition so I used a die cut of a Christmas tree and the kids balled up tissue paper for the ornaments.

This was my November bulletin board.  We have been working on short vowel word families, each child was assigned a word family and on each feather they had to write a word from that particular word family.  On the turkey's clothes the word family chunk was written.  We went out in the hall and count how many words we could read and write as a class!

Letter Sounds Book (K.RFS.3a, K.RFS.1d)

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.1d Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

* CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3a Demonstrate basic knowledge of letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or most frequent sound for each consonant

I am having great success with using a new approach to phonics and phonemic awareness.  When my kids come in at the beginning of the year their letter and sound knowledge is always all over the map.  I like for all my students to have mastered letter and sound recognition by Halloween.  This allows them to build from a foundation and move on to short vowel word families, manipulating phonemes, blends, and vowel patterns early in the year and get lots of practice at these higher level skills.

Starting with the first day of school every student is given an ABC book that we practice first thing each morning.  The book follows the same format as going through an alphabet chart.  Students repeat the letter, sound it makes, and picture.  However, I find it way more successful for a few reasons.

* It isolates only 5 letters on a page at a time. (After they repeat after me for the 5 letters, I give them a word that would start with one of the 5 letters and they have to pick which letter is making that beginning sound.  This gives them beginning sound isolation right from the start.

* They each have their own copy of the book, every student points to the letter we are on.  The visual being in their own hands and them verbally saying each letter helps to make it more concrete for them.

* When I ask the question about a word and what letter it would start with, they all write the letter on their whiteboard.  This gives them practice writing the letter and gets everyone involved.

This whole activity only takes 5-7 minutes, I chose to put the vowels at the end of the books and all of the consonants first.  Before we practice the vowels I have the kids say: "These are the vowels, every word has one: a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.